Reaching for Life’s Secrets

Misquoting lines from verses of “Scriptures” by using the pick and choose method for the purpose of attacking some presumed offense against a never-seen god most often constitutes more of sacrilegious act than that of the subject of the attack.

To use “sacred writ” as an arsenal is always a cowardly assault for it is the deliberate use of deceit. Or worse, it is ignorance of the “holy” material that is being violated. How so? Lines that are lifted out of context of any scriptural storyline and applied to unrelated situations serves only as bogus evidence of some alleged guilt.

A case in point: The extreme rightwing religionists, the so-called pro-lifers, have loudly opposed stem cell research under the unauthentic claim that use of embryo cells for scientific research amounts to murder. The biblical (half-) line most often used by them to “prove” their stance is from the book of Jeremiah 1:5 where God is said to have spoken personally to the “prophet” Jeremiah–not to all mankind. It was to Jeremiah only that God supposedly declared, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

Using a portion of one sentence from a biblical verse is intentional misuse–or most likely it is ignorance of the theoretical point of the story elements which is lost to them–for the rest of God’s butchered address to Jeremiah clarifies, “I have appointed you as a prophet to all nations.”

We all possess a smidgen of what might be termed psychic abilities, but can each of us really be termed a prophet to all nations? And if Jeremiah was known before being formed in the womb is it sperm that is being referred to? Was Jeremiah the fastest swimmer?

But even as a secretion is activated into a substance from which a lifeform may develop, the initial substance has no functional sense organs, no higher brain centers–and most importantly it has no sense of consciousness. It is primal life energy. Indeed, not even the most rudimentary level of self-awareness is present until near the end of the third trimester when the brain begins to take on form enough to produce weak energy charges. Embryo cells, therefore, provide the potential of life but are not yet possessed (or blessed) with the consciousness of self.

So being guided by ideology or superstition on these matters of physical formation amounts to nothing more than indulgence in self-destruction. Can one really believe that God is being glorified by persons who simply sit in distress and wring their hands as they pray for a miracle while the patient dies in agony? It is much more respectful to the Creative Source to use our “god-given” brains to search out the means and guidelines for reaching life’s higher potential. Using those primal substances of life (cells which are not yet imbued with consciousness) not only allows us to reach for the answers to our present life-threatening maladies, but sets in place the foundation for a future made closer to the imagined Heaven that man has long dreamed of.